[Drama Recap] Big Episode 01

Here we recap and discuss episode 1 of Big. Caution, spoilers below. Don’t read if you don’t want to know what happens.

We start off with our heroine Gil Da Ran, played by the beautiful Lee Min Jung, rushing off to deliver a bouquet of flowers for wedding. When she gets there, the bride yells at her for being late, but stops when she realizes that it’s her friend. In fact, everyone there knows Da Ran. Awkward… The cameraman asks everyone to crowd around for pictures and the bride hesitantly asks Da Ran to join as well, but she says she needs to leave right away for another delivery. She stops by the front desk of the hotel to get her ticket validated, and decides that she may as well get some food while she’s here. Da Ran gives some money as a present and gets a meal ticket in return. As she’s eating, she mutters to herself that she has to pass her exam this time. Her meal is interrupted by her phone ringing.

Apparently she was given the wrong bouquet and her boss wants her to get the one she just delivered back. Fortunately, the bride is about to get ready to do the bouquet toss. Da Ran squeezes her way to the front, and her friends are surprised to see her still there. To hide her true objective, she tells that she’s the bride’s friend too and should stay and congratulate her until the end. LOL, I already like this girl. As she prepares herself for the toss, we find out that her friend paid for a $300, but got one that’s a $1000. Plus Da Ran gave wedding money so she has every right to catch it. She’s actually about to catch it, but gets knocked out of the way and knocked down a flight of stairs by our male lead Seo Yoon Jae, played by Gong Yoo.

Sometime later, we hear a radio host reading off her story. Her tailbone and wrists were fractured and she had to be hospitalized for 2 months so couldn’t take her exam. However, during that time, Yoon Jae was her doctor and proposed to her right after she got her cast off. She’s going to be married in just one month and soon will start working as a part-time teacher. Da Ran is listening to her story on the radio and is happy to hear that she won a rice cooker for this. The radio will also play Lee Seung Gi’s “Will You Marry Me” for her as well. LOL, gotta love the Hong sisters and their nods to prior dramas. As Da Ran is nodding her head along to the music, she notices Kang Kyung Joon, played by Shin Won Ho, staring at her.

When she gets off the bus, Da Ran wonders briefly why some random boy was staring at her, and is surprised when he calls out for her and goes under her umbrella. She asks him if he followed her off the bus and thinks that he’s hitting on her. Da Ran stutters out that she’s engaged and that she’s older than she looks, but Kyung Joon interrupts her fantasy and says that she took his umbrella. LOL. Since she goes want to get wet, Da Ran follows Kyung Joon as he walks away and gets mad at him for not taking her umbrella off the bus when he got off. She tells him that she got flustered at him staring at her on the bus and he matter-of-factly says that she was acting funny while listening to her radio.

Kyung Joon then starts walking again and says that even though everyone on the bus was looking at her, of course she only noticed the young boy looking at her. He scoffs at her line about following him off the bus and asks if she’s going to keep follow him. She makes an X with her arms and starts to run off after apologizing. Kyung Joon stops her with the umbrella and asks if she’s going to that school in front of them and is told to mind his own business. As she runs off in the rain, Kyung Joon just watches her and shakes his head.

When Da Ran gets to the teacher’s room, she’s immediately scolded for being late and for showing up wet from the rain. She’s shocked when Kyung Joon walks into the teacher’s room as well and is introduced as a good looking transfer student who got good grades in his last high school. Da Ran tries to hide herself, but Kyung Joon sees her immediately and smirks. The principle notices her trying to hide and volunteers her to show him around the school. Hah. Kyung Joon is waiting outside and asks an embarrassed Da Ran if it’s okay to follow her now. She glares at him and tells him in English to follow her. She tries to compliment the school’s facilities, saying that they’re as good as the ones he had in the US, but Kyung Joon talks back to her every time and says that it sucks. Da Ran eventually gets sick of it and says that his way of speaking is disrespectful since she’s a teacher, but Kyung Joon replies that he’s just talking to himself. Hah. When he calls her by her name, Da Ran gets mad again and rattles off in Korean and English for him to call her teacher before continuing the tour.

When Yoon Jae calls, Da Ran immediately turns into a school girl and excitedly goes off to talk to him. As she talks about meeting him at the hospital that evening, Kyung Joon just sits behind her and realizes that she’s the person whose story he also heard on the radio. He asks her about it after she hangs up, and Da Ran gets him to agree to keep it a secret in exchange for not telling him that he’s rude. After he leaps through the window, Da Ran just stands there and adorably gets mad about how there’s a perfectly good door right there. LOL.

As Kyung Joon is walking through the school, he runs into another student named Gil Choong Sik and two of his buddies. They speak to him in bad English, causing Kyung Joon to call them stupid. The three don’t quite know what the word means but know it’s an insult because they heard it from f(x)’s Krystal in the sitcom High Kick 3. Choong Sik tells him to just speak in Korean if he understands them, but Kyung Joon plays dumb and just keeps walking. To teach him a lesson, Choong Sik throws a punch at him, but it’s caught by Da Ran, who appears out of nowhere. While watching Choong Sik get beat up by Da Ran, Kyung Joon asks if it’s okay for teachers to beat up students in Korea. Of course it’s not, but Da Ran is Choong Sik’s older sister so it’s fine.

Afterwards, Da Ran tends to his injures and scolds him for starting a fight. Choong Sik tries to tell her that Kyung Joon started it, but she’s not having it. Kyung Joon happens to see them and seems jealous at how close the two siblings look, even if they’re running away while fighting. When Kyung Joon gets home, it looks completely empty and inside his refrigerator we only see frozen foods. After eating, he mindlessly just lays down on his bed and knocks over some small wooden figures next to him.

When Da Ran gets to the hospital, she runs into Lee Se Young, another doctor, who asks if she’s here to see Yoon Jae. Da Ran proudly shows off the food that she brought and they start talking about her upcoming wedding. As Da Ran is waiting for Yoon Jae in his office, she sits down on the bed in it and we flashback to them happily talking about the size of the bed they want to buy. She then pulls a box out from under it and sees that Yoon Jae hasn’t even passed out their wedding invitations yet.

Eventually, Da Ran gets tired of waiting and heads home, which apparently is also a restaurant. She immediately starts helping her dad with the dishes and he asks her if she was out with his future-son-in-law. He comments that it would’ve been nice for her to get her teacher’s license before getting married, but Da Ran says it doesn’t really matter if she passes her test or not. Her dad immediately gets mad at her for saying that and she immediately apologizes. Once they’re done, they go into actual house and see Choong Sik and Mom unwrapping an exercise machine. Dad says that she needs to study now, but Mom says that she should instead focus on losing weight and looking good for her wedding. After the parents leave, Choong Sik jokes with his sister that he’s going to go visit her fiancé in the hospital, but Da Ran threatens to kill him if he does. Hah.

The next day, Kyung Joon is outside with his uncle Hyuk Soo, who shows off a nice looking motorbike that he bought for him. Though Kyung Joon asked for it, he wonders if Hyuk Soo used his mom’s will money to buy it for himself instead of Kyung Joon. Nonetheless, he takes the keys and thanks him for it. When they walk inside, Hyuk Soo asks Kyung Joon if they should buy him a new bed since the ones they brought from the US are for kids, but Kyung Joon says he can only sleep on that particular bed. His aunt, who is restocking his fridge, asks if maybe he can’t sleep because the place is too big for one person, but he says that he’s going to stay here because his mom bought this place. Orphan, huh. The sibling jealous makes sense now.

When he’s alone, Kyung Joon reminisces about his mom telling him how sleeping in his own bed will make him an adult. Considering his legs are longer than the bed, I’d say that yeah he could stand to get a new one. Kyung Joon comes to the same conclusion as well and goes bed shopping. He sees a nice canopy bed and tells the owner that he’ll buy it if he can fall asleep there. Of course, this happens to be the same bed that Da Ran picked out and he’s not happy to see that someone sleeping on it since it’s the last one the store has in stock. She sits down on the bed to see who’s taking her bed from her and is surprised when Kyung Joon suddenly wakes up and looks at her.

She desperately tries to talk him out of buying it and in the process accidentally breaks it. As she’s paying for the damage, she turns and glares at Kyung Joon. Da Ran then takes him out for a meal and tries to get him to take the bed and pay for some of it as well. Kyung Joon tells her he was just looking and it and since he’s just an orphan, he doesn’t have parents to buy him stuff like that either. She apologizes for mentioning his parents and then gets a call from Yoon Jae. As she sketches a heart with her finger on the table, Da Ran is told that once again Yoon Jae is busy and can’t meet her. Hmm…seems like someone’s getting ignored.

At the hospital, Se Young is in Yoon Jae’s office and sees a picture that Da Ran put up earlier of her and Yoon Jae. She quickly rips it off the board and throws it in the trash, right as Yoon Jae and two other doctors walk in. Se Young asks him when he’s going to pass out the invitations, but is told that they haven’t arrived yet. Uh, what? Meanwhile, Da Ran is trying to study for her test, but is also kind of trying not to fall asleep. One of her wedding invitations is hanging in front of her though, and after seeing it, she gets some motivation to keep going.

The next day, Kyung Joon is riding his motorcycle when he sees Da Ran running so she won’t be late again. He purposes rides close to her and splashes her by going through a puddle. When he gets to school, one of the teachers scolds him for not wearing a uniform, and is told to make sure he has one by the end of the week. Da Ran sees this exchange and feels sorry for him. She calls him into a classroom and gives him a uniform that she bought for him. Though Kyung Joon scoffs at her gift, calling it cheap and saying that she must think he’s poor since he has no parents, he actually seems happy about receiving it and puts it on like she wanted. As he’s walking out of the restroom, he opens up his wallet and we see a picture of two angels in it. Doesn’t mean much on its own, but we then cut to Yoon Jae staring at his wedding invitation as well as a ticket to Los Angeles. He hides the tickets in a book, which has a similar picture of two angels on the cover.

Back at the school, Da Ran is starting her class. She looks over at Kyung Joon and he takes his hands out of his pockets like she asked him to earlier. Before she can start her lesson though, the other students have apparently found out about her story on the radio and start teasing Da Ran about her injuries. Da Ran tries her best to maintain her control of the classroom, but the students aren’t listening to her and continue to do it until Choong Sik gets them to stop.

Afterwards, one of her fellow teachers tells her not to worry too much about it since they’re kids, but Da Ran is still embarrassed about it. She wonders about how Yoon Jae must feel about marrying someone who doesn’t even have a full time job, but her friend tells her to cheer up and says that she’s jealous that Da Ran is going with Yoon Jae to see houses soon.

This still bothers Da Ran and later we see her staring at her phone as she’s waiting once again for Yoon Jae. Unfortunately, she gets blown off again and she asks him if he’s really too busy to even come help her pick out their newlywed house. She starts crying and asks him if she’s really just marrying her out of responsibility for hurting her instead of because he loves her. If it’s the former, then they may as well just call off the wedding. After she hangs up, Da Ran realizes what she just said and starts panicking. Kyung Joon sees this whole exchange and takes the phone from her. Da Ran tells him to give it back, but he doesn’t listen to her and instead drives her on his motorcycles somewhere with a nice view.

After they stop, Da Ran thanks him for stopping her from apologizing for what she said and says that he must be feeling sorry for spreading the rumor about her. Kyung Joon tells that it wasn’t him, saying not to group him with his other childish classmates, but Da Ran doesn’t believe him and says that he’s just like the others. She then gives him a few tips about fitting in with the other students and shows him the “buing buing” thing that Krystal does in her High Kick 3 sitcom. However, her little lesson is interrupted by Yoon Jae calling her. He tells her to ask him if she loves him again and he responds by asking where she is so he can tell her in person. Da Ran immediately brightens up and tries to figure out where she is as Kyung Joon rides off and leaves her alone.

And here comes the body-switching accident. In an attempt to avoid a collision in front of them, both Yoon Jae and Kyung Joon swear into the guardrail and into the lake below. Kyung Joon seems unconscious from the impact of hitting the water, but Yoon Jae is awake and stuck inside his car. He manages to break free and sees Kyung Joon sinking to the bottom. He checks to see how far down he is, and then swims after Kyung Joon and the two mimic the pose of the angels in their picture.

The two are rescued and brought to a nearby hospital, but seem in pretty bad shape as they’re intubated and defibrillators are used to attempt to resuscitate them. It looks like Yoon Jae didn’t make it as we see a body is brought to the morgue and Da Ran looks devastated when she reaches the front desk of the hospital. As she’s on her way to identify the body, Da Ran collapses on the floor and breaks into tears.

Inside the morgue though, Yoon Jae wakes up and sees a blurred reflection of himself. Of course, this is now actually Kyung Joon and he’s confused as hell as to why he’s woken up in another person’s body. Wearing only the sheet that was covering him, he wanders outside and sees Da Ran crying by herself in the hallway. She happens to look up and can’t believe what she’s seeing. The tears immediately dry up and she goes over to hug him, which starts the waterworks all over again. Kyung Joon pushes her off and asks him who he is and tells her who he is. Da Ran looks at him like a crazy person and asks him how he knows who Kyung Joon is. He explains what happened during the accident and says that he woke up like this. Suddenly, he’s wondering to himself that if he’s here, what happened to his real body?

With Da Ran close on his heels, Kyung Joon goes back into the morgue to look. He sees a covered body and freaks out, thinking that it’s him. Da Ran is still confused as to why he’s acting like this and he pulls off the cover of the body…only to see that it’s a random old man. LOL. He collapses in relief, and Da Ran kneels down and says that they should go run some tests on him. Kyung Joon asks her once again if she sees him as Yoon Jae and Da Ran still thinks he’s just confused and hit his head during the accident. She tells him that he was on his way to see her and says that she told him to say something to her. After several moments of looking at her as if his memory is coming back…he says “buing buing”. HAHAHA. He even does the hand motions.

Da Ran, still confused as hell, says that she asked him if she loved him and that she told Kyung Joon to do the “buing buing”. A nurse then walks in on them and all three start screaming. We now see Kyung Joon getting a CAT scan. The doctor tells Da Ran that he seems fine, but Da Ran insists that that he’s acting like a different person. Hah.

After the scan, Kyung Joon is staring at himself in the mirror, wondering once again where his real body is. He happens to overhear his Uncle asking about the whereabouts of his body and follows him. Kyung Joon overhears that Yoon Jae in his body still hasn’t woken up yet and it’s a shock to see himself lying on the hospital bed. As a bloody patient is being pushed past him, some blood ends up on Kyung Joon’s hands. He looks at it and suddenly is reminded of the night his mom died, from what seems like a mugging or something.

Meanwhile, Da Ran is wandering around the hospital looking for her fiancé when she overhears the doctors talk about Kyung Joon. She thinks back to what Kyung Joon was telling her while in Yoon Jae’s body and suddenly the crazy story might not be all that crazy. Denying that such a thing could be possible, Da Ran continues to go around looking for Yoon Jae.

After searching the entire hospital and not being able to find her fiancé, Da Ran has a crazy hunch and calls another teacher to ask for Kyung Joon’s home address. She goes up to his room and sure enough Kyung Joon is sleeping in his bed. Da Ran hesitantly approaches him and when their faces are just a foot from each other, Kyung Joon wakes up. The two stare at each other for a while and Da Ran slowly calls out Kyung Joon’s name. He then responds by calling her teacher.

Final Thoughts

After the stupidity of “Fashion King“, the melodramatic “Love Rain“, and the craziness of “The King 2 Hearts“, I was really looking forward to a nice little rom-com. Thus far, I’ve not been disappointed. The Hong sisters are always good for a laugh and thus far I’m liking the little setup they have going in this one. Given that it’s only episode one, it’s kind of hard to judge things like chemistry and acting ability, but Gong Yoo and Lee Min Jung are both well respected in the industry so I’m sure they’ll do a great job. I was already a fan of Lee Min Jung going in anyway, and I’m already liking her character of Gil Da Ran. It’s a tad too cutesy, but I’m sure that it’ll grow on me. Or annoy me to no end, either or.

Like in “Love Rain”, it’s the actor-dol that’s the wild card. miss A’s Suzy will make her appearance next episode as her character Jang Ma Ri. She was heavily criticized for her role as Go Hye Mi in Dream High, though she seems to have made great stride since then as she was praised for her recent role in the movie “An Introduction to Architecture”. This is also Shin Won Ho’s second acting role as well so I’ll be interested to see how he does too. It is a romantic comedy after all so even if they’re bad it wouldn’t take too much away from the drama, but of course I’m hoping for them to each hold their own and keep my laughing all the way through. I could definitely do without the bad English though… Was a foreign exchange student really necessary?

Was this episode relatively boring? Yeah, a bit, but it’s the first episode so I’m not too worried. It IS also missing the wittier dialogue that I’ve also come to expect from the Hong sisters, but hey a drama with Lee Min Jung and Suzy? Sign me up. Since it is a Hong sisters drama, I’m also expecting at least one or two cameos from their old leads. Personally, I’m betting Lee Seung Gi(My Girlfriend is a Gumiho) and Park Shin Hye(You’re Beautiful). Though, they did play Seung Gi’s song already so maybe not. Is it too much to hope for an AN.Jell reunion?

2 responses to “[Drama Recap] Big Episode 01”

As far as romantic comedies go, the Hong Sisters usually do a good job. If you’re a fan of theirs, you’ll prob like this one as well. Two other dramas I’m currently watching atm are “Ghost” and “A Gentleman’s Dignity”, the latter of which I’m prob gonna start recapping soon